Overview of The Watch’s Summer Mailbag
In this summer mailbag episode of The Watch, Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald answer listener questions about everything from terrible prestige-TV theme songs and “twin” versions of shows, to adapting historical events into miniseries, the economics of producing streamers, and book recommendations for an L.A. vacation. The conversation is loose, funny, and industry-savvy, with a recurring theme of how TV, film, and culture get made — and how often the business side shapes the final product.
Main Topics Discussed
TV theme songs and opening credits
- The hosts criticize a number of current prestige-TV theme songs, especially:
- “Strange Game” from Slow Horses
- “Love Is Blindness” from The Agency
- “Your Friends and Neighbors”’s opening sequence, which they also dislike
- Their main complaint: these songs feel lazy or overly obvious, often just dropping in a famous musician without making a distinctive creative choice.
- They argue for a return to more varied theme-song approaches, including season-to-season variation like The Wire or The Leftovers.
“Twin” shows and alternate perspectives
- A listener asks about shows that could have a “twin” version told from the other side.
- They discuss:
- The Agency / Le Bureau / Star City / The Koreans
- The idea of telling the same world from another country’s or institution’s perspective
- Andy likes the concept of a “twin” series when it’s truly about the other side of a conflict or wall, not just a remake.
- They also use the idea to imagine possible pairings like:
- Andor from another character’s POV
- Parks and Recreation reimagined through David Simon’s sensibility
- A more expansive Mike Schur version of an urban police show
Real-world geopolitics inside fiction
- They talk about how contemporary political events can make current spy dramas hard to write.
- On The Agency, the writers intentionally set the story in a recent period, which helps avoid direct collisions with breaking-world events.
- Their broader point: shows about the present moment are increasingly difficult because reality moves too fast, and some modern political figures and events are already harder to dramatize than history.
TV shows and word-of-mouth success
- Responding to a question about Widow’s Bay, they discuss whether old-school word of mouth still works.
- Their answer: yes, but in a changed ecosystem.
- A show can still grow organically, but “success” now means different things depending on the platform.
- They compare modern buzz cycles to earlier broadcast-era hits like:
- Seinfeld
- Lost
- Ted Lasso
- Baby Reindeer
- Adolescence
- They note that platform size, distribution model, and renewal expectations all change what “a hit” even means.
Historical events that should become miniseries
- One listener proposes absurdly specific historical dramatizations.
- The hosts’ dream projects include:
- David Milch on the fall of Saigon
- Craig Mazin on the failed Soviet coup of 1991
- They’re especially interested in how geopolitical chaos, intelligence agencies, and historical factions could be dramatized by prestige-TV auteurs.
Culture that should have broken through but didn’t
- They revisit films or shows they thought would become major hits.
- Chris cites Long Shot as a movie he and Sean Fennessey thought would be a massive rom-com hit, but it didn’t break through as expected.
- They also discuss The Invite as a movie with strong creative merits that may have been mishandled by its release strategy.
- Another example: Freaks and Geeks, which felt like an instant office-wide revelation but didn’t become a mass hit in real time.
Book Recommendations
L.A. books for a vacation read
A listener asks for books that capture Los Angeles, and they offer a strong list:
- Jordan Harper — especially Everybody Knows and A Violent Masterpiece
- Dark, contemporary L.A. crime novels
- Full of corruption, publicity, and city-specific menace
- James Ellroy — implied as part of the essential L.A. crime canon
- Joan Didion — Play It as It Lays
- Nathaniel West — The Day of the Locust
- Bret Easton Ellis — Less Than Zero
- Eve Babitz — Slow Days, Fast Company
- Larry McMurtry — the Houston/film-adjacent books, especially Somebody’s Darling
- Don Carpenter — especially the Hollywood Trilogy
- They also mention Marina Benjamin? No — the transcript centers on McMurtry and Carpenter; the emphasis is on books that capture the glamour, rot, and romance of L.A.
Current reads and personal favorites
- Chris is reading:
- Humboldt’s Gift by Saul Bellow
- A Violent Masterpiece by Jordan Harper
- Playworld by Adam Ross
- Effingers
- a recent Murakami novel
- Lives of the Saints by Nancy Lemann, which he calls one of his favorites of the year
- Kaya recommends:
- London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe
- Troubles by J.G. Farrell
- Slow Fade by Rudolf Wurlitzer
- The Sisters by Jonas Hassen Khemiri
- Mad Woman by Chelsea Bieker
- Heart the Lover by Lily King
- Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
The Business of TV and Money
How producers and EPs actually make money
- A listener asks how people who executive-produce streaming shows get paid.
- They explain:
- Many producer credits now come with fees, ownership points, or renewal-based bonuses
- In the old network era, success could keep paying for years through syndication and long-tail reruns
- In streaming, the money model is far more opaque and often front-loaded
- They also discuss producer bloat:
- More EPs, more shingle deals, more people taking a piece
- Shorter episode orders can increase per-episode pay, but the overall economics remain complicated
- They note how the collapse of old studio/network separation changed the business and reduced the number of middlemen who could profit from a hit.
Andy on criticism, production, and authorship
How working in production changed his lens
- Andy reflects on how his perspective evolved after working in TV production.
- He says:
- He used to think more like a critic and less like a producer
- Production taught him how often good intentions get distorted by budget, communication issues, logistics, and collaboration
- He now pays closer attention to how many people shape a scene, a look, or a final creative decision
- He emphasizes that:
- Great TV/film is always a collective effort
- The “author” matters, but so do the artisans: production design, cinematography, props, editing, and scheduling
Emotional connections to TV and film
When culture hits personally instead of critically
- A listener asks about shows that have hit them on a deeply emotional level.
- Chris shares that the finale of Euphoria hit him very hard, tied to his own grief and a memorial service for his mother.
- Andy says his strongest emotional reactions are now often parenting-related, especially when watching things with his kids:
- Bluey is the clearest example
- He also mentions Eat Drink Man Woman as an example of a movie that connected strongly through family, food, and generational feeling
- Their point: sometimes a piece of culture unlocks something in you that you didn’t even know was waiting there.
Key Takeaways
- Prestige TV still lives and dies by creative choices as small as a theme song.
- The TV business has changed so radically that “success” no longer means the same thing it once did.
- Historical events and current geopolitical crises can be powerful TV material, but they’re increasingly hard to dramatize in the present tense.
- Word of mouth still matters — but platform economics and streaming metrics complicate the old broadcast model.
- The hosts continue to value books, especially ones that capture a place with real texture and moral atmosphere.
- Their best long-running theme of the episode: great art is collective, fragile, and often shaped as much by logistics as by inspiration.
End-of-Episode Notes
- The episode closes with a thank-you to listeners and producer Kaya.
- They tease an upcoming special episode honoring Anthony Bourdain, tied to the release of Tony.
- They also mention they’ll return to regular programming on August 10.